W. Swimming helped by new format at La Salle Invitational

What a difference two years make. In 1995, the Penn women's swimming team placed sixth out of nine teams at the La Salle Invitational at the Joseph Kirk Pool. This year, new faces, new talent and new meet regulations all had a hand in the Quakers' finishing second to the hosts at the 1997 La Salle Invitational. The Explorers, with 625.50 points, finished far ahead of Penn, which had 464 points, but the overall placement for the Quakers was much improved. "Yes, this team is better than two years ago and they responded to the situation better too, but there was one big difference," coach Kathy Lawlor-Gilbert said. "The La Salle meet was still a two-day affair held on a Friday and Saturday, but back then, it was regarded as two separate meets. That's why we were only allowed to bring half our team on the Friday of that meet. Now they have changed the rule so we had our full team this Friday." Judging by the results of two years ago, Penn would have been expected to finish near the middle of the table. According to Assistant Coach Mike Schnur, the other eight New Jersey-Philadelphia area schools at the meet were about the same talent-wise as they were last time. Even optimistic Quakers could only have foreseen themselves finishing third or fourth, despite the advantage that a young Quaker team would be familiar with swimming in the meet's club-style format. This was the Quakers' only focus meet before Christmas vacation and they only looked stronger as the meet went on, according to Lawlor-Gilbert and Schnur. "I had high expectations for the women and I was impressed and happy with the way they responded to the endurance challenge posed by this meet," said Lawlor-Gilbert. Even co-captain and freestyler Lauren Hibbert was pleasantly surprised by Penn's display of endurance. The 9:00 meet time Saturday morning may have been unusual for some, but freshman Katie Kowalski got the Quakers off to a promising start with a ninth-place finish in the 200 freestyle in 2:00.61. Close on her heels was Michelle Amicone, who took 11th place in 2:01.11. In the Saturday afternoon session, Cathy Holland took second for Penn in the 200 yard breaststroke in a time of 2 minutes, 27.51 seconds. The race was Holland's third of the day. "The different race format did help us," Hibbert said. "We swam well on Friday night, but we seemed to swim faster with every race. The tough events like the 200 strokes [200 backstroke, 200 butterfly] were on Saturday afternoon but we didn't look tired. Most teams there were tough Division II scholarship schools but we were tough too." Tough performances like those of sophomore Amicone, who swam all the freestyle events and finished ninth in the 50 freestyle in 56.45 seconds, enabled Penn to seize second place and go into Christmas break confident in its own ability. Very early in the season, Lawlor-Gilbert made it clear that the dual meets with Rutgers and Dartmouth were the two focus matches of the season. The Red and Blue will battle with the Scarlet Knights January 10 in an important meet that is also their home opener.